New figures released by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) show that Payment Protection Insurance complaints made in the second half of 2010 increased by 63%. Find out how to save money and claim compensation. The last six months of 2010 saw 434,596 complaints made about payment protection insurance, up from 266,685 in the first half of 2010.

In comparison, the last six months of 2009 saw just 174,286 complaints made about PPI. The PPI mis selling scandal is thought to effect up to 20million people. PPI is usually sold as an add-on to a loan, credit card, mortgage (MPPI) or overdraft agreement. The borrower is not obliged to take out PPI so the provider cannot add it on to the loan agreement without your knowledge.

Banks are businesses, they exist to look after your money and turn a profit. However, making huge profits by mis selling PPI on loans, credit cards & mortgages their customers sign up for is just wrong. Thankfully, Point of Sale (POS) – selling PPI at the same time as a selling a loan or credit card – has now been banned – which shows how much of an issue PPI mis selling from the banks really is!

Using the phrase ‘ABC’ – Always Be Closing, 3 former employees of large High St Banks spoke to Gladstone Brookes recently. They described an atmosphere of sales, risk and reward resulting in massive pressure to sell, sell, sell. Our research shows that the banks offer incentives to employees to sell at every level: daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly – no matter how crazy the incentive if the manager wanted it they could sign it off.

One former employee of a High St bank even told us of holidays to Paris, 2 week Safari holidays in Africa, laptops, bottles of champagne and straight out cash rewards selling PPI. PPI was and continues to be massively incentivised by the banks – the reason they’ve fought so hard against stopping selling it is that its sales represent pure profit. Once they’ve sold you a policy that’s it – they don’t pay out on it, the insurance company does.

Banks train their staff to play on the fears of the customers, with PPI two questions form the basis of the training – Do you really have a job for life? Claims for the misselling of payment protection insurance are likely to keep rising over the next few years and British banks could owe as much as £3 or £4 billion to consumers who have been mis sold insurance.

One of the biggest grievances made against PPI is that many sellers led consumers to believe that it was compulsory to take out payment protection insurance when applying for a loan, mortgage or credit card. Remember, PPI is always optional, it is never compulsory, If you were told that you had to take out Payment Protection Insurance then this is wrong and you will be liable to receive compensation.